


teething

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Domestic, HYDRA Husbands, M/M, Medical Conditions, Mild Gore, Scratching, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 08:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20005195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: there's a dry patch of skin on Brock's shoulder, where burns cover a badly healed bullet wound.





	teething

The bathroom is filled with steam as Brock gets out of the shower, tiny rivulets of water condensing on the mirror and racing their way down in near-straight lines. He likes it best like this, air hazy and warm, when all that greets him as he stands in front of the mirror is a blur of colours rather than a sharp reflection of his body. The damp heat is near suffocating and he starts to sweat the moment he shuts off the water, but he doesn't dare open the window just yet.

He wraps a towel around his waist and uses another one to dry his hair, rubbing at it roughly and inevitably making it stick up in every direction, anticipating Jack's gentle fingers pushing dark strands back into their place. It doesn't matter just now though, because Jack is still in one of his moods and won't bother even acknowledging Brock's presence for a while longer, and Brock is content like this, an assemblage of shapes and colours beneath a thin film of shiny sweat, suspended in the steam beyond the confines of his ruined, hurting body, just for a few precious moments.

When the heat filling the tiny bathroom becomes overbearing rather than soothing he cracks open a window, letting the cool evening air disperse the haze. Just like that he's pulled back to reality, a mess of reddened scars glaring daggers back at him as soon as the surface of the mirror beings to clear. He reaches into a cabinet for his pill bottles, standing at attention in a neat row.

Grabbing all of them at one, he spreads them out on the counter, taking pleasure in his small act of anarchy in this meticulously ordered world of Jack's. He knows Jack does it because he cares, he really does, but all of his fussing can be too much sometimes, veering on the side of annoying rather than helpful. Or maybe it's just his own temper that's gotten worse, Brock thinks, as he stubbornly refuses to feel bad about any of it. Not like Jack is doing much better these days either, turning from clingy to distant and all the way back in a matter of minutes.

Pill bottles are tipped into his hand one by one, each dose swallowed dry. There's white capsules with orange writing on them, for the pain in his back. Powdery, light blue tablets for his nerves. Small, round white ones to help him sleep. He digs through stacks of bandages and enough painkilleres to stock a small pharmacy to the back of the cabinet, where he keeps a modest supply of diamond-shaped blue ones. Jack has probably seen them, impossible to miss with how well organised he keeps their medicine supply, but it helps to have them hidden out of sight, almost as if it would somehow conceal the shame he feels. He turns over the half-empty blister pack in his hands, thick fingers pushing on the empty bits of plastic. As much as Brock is in the mood, Jack is unlikely to be up for getting fucked tonight, with how quiet he has been recently, keeping Brock at a tangible distance. With a wistful sigh, Brock shoves the pills back into their hiding spot behind a mountain of individually packed gauze squares.

By the time he is done with the medication the milky fog covering the mirror has dissolved almost completely, and reluctantly he takes a closer look.

The slight surprise of his reflection is still new to him. Almost as if the twisted mass of raised, angry red burn scars would melt away one day, leaving his skin resembling skin again. He digs his fingers into a pot of ointment, dabbing the thick cream onto his forehead and cheeks. He rubs it in slowly, pulling at the waxy skin. Years ago he'd be worried about giving himself wrinkles. Now it's the least of his concerns.

They are hiding behind it all already anyway, he knows. As he pulls at the thick, discoloured skin he takes stock of crow's feet and fine lines across his forehead, faint and gentle amongst the battlefield of burn marks and cuts. He'd be glad if the hardened skin of countless scars could at least make itself useful and and conceal the inevitable signs of ageing.

No such mercies for him, though.

Lost in thought, he pulls and pats at his face, observing as the expanse of sleek, leathery flesh stretches and bunches into lightly glistening folds. Up close, it doesn't even look human, his face an alien landscape, strange and hostile. His skin walks the thin line between painfully organic and seemingly artificial, the texture closer to plastic than human tissue, parts of it devoid of feeling altogether. It's strange, is what it is, and real fuckin' ugly.

He's pulled out of his thoughts by a sharp knock on the door and a muted "You alive in there?", uttered in that tone Jack's voice takes on when he wants to play off fear as annoyance.

He yells a "Yeah, come on in" in the vague direction of the door, suddenly anxious to get his grooming over with. Working as quickly as possible, he runs a comb through his damp hair to tame it a bit before sticking a toothbrush in his mouth, both to be done for the evening and to have an excuse for not making conversation.

Jack walks in, shoulders hunched and gaze lowered, seemingly timid. Maybe his mood let up and the strange, tense energy of the morning dissipated on its own. Maybe he's stashing pain meds somewhere in the kitchen again and an oxy or two helped him relax. Whatever it is, Brock is pleased to see Jack quiet in that warm way of his, calm but not removed, gentle without veering on the side of too affectionate.

Without a word, Jack makes his way behind Brock, wrapping his arms around Brock's middle. Even though he's still skin and bones these days, seemingly unable to put on any weight after months of imprisonment, the strength is still there, and it feels good to be held like that. Brock leans into the embrace as he brushes his teeth, paying no mind to Jack's hands as they start to wander, from Brock's stomach up to his chest and down the sides.

He only notices when the muscle of his left shoulder flinches involuntarily at the touch of something wet. Brock looks up in the mirror as he spits and rinses, noticing the stark white gleam of what must be his facial ointment on Jack's hands, steadily rubbing the lotion into the skin of his back.

"What the fuck are you up to, Jackie?" he asks as Jack hums to himself and continues the slow, circular motions of his hands.

"You've got a patch of dry skin. Right here. It's flaking a bit" Jack says as he stills his hand over Brock's left shoulder blade, right in the spot where Brock knows his scars form a nasty, tangled knot, a layer of burns over a badly healed bullet wound.

Brock pays it no mind as Jack's hands move down to his hips.

* * *

A week goes by and Brock's skin starts to itch. It's a strange, distant sensation, a constant thrum of seemingly burnt off nerves. The dry patch spreads to his shoulder, down his arm and to the tips of his fingers, raised bits of skin flaking off around the fingernails. He pulls at them until he reaches tissue that is still alive beneath the burns and somehow clinging to the rest of his body, tearing it off in swift, sharp motions, leaving his cuticles a mess of fine red lines.

When bigger patches start to appear on his left arm he scratches at them until they bleed. It's subconscious, it really is, the blunt nails of his right hand somehow drawn to the uneven surface of the left, chasing a feeling of relief that never comes. He claws at his skin until the flesh underneath is shiny and pink, the already mangled skin crusty with dried lymph. Then he picks at it some more, because no matter how many red welts his nails leave in the messy patchwork of dead and living flesh, the itch never goes away.

Another week goes by and dry skin turns into wet scabs. They refuse to heal, and he's stuck touching them constantly, unable to alleviate the sensation. Soon, holes start to appear, scattered in between tangled ropes of burn scars, deep and constantly weeping, a sickly yellowish film of scabbing appearing just to slide off when pus starts to gather beneath it.

They're sat on the sofa in front of the fire, Jack reading and Brock attempting to nap, ultimately defeated by the dull ache beneath his ruined skin. He tries to be discreet about it, tired of Jack insisting on plasters and lotions and all that, but he can't help the steady _scritch scritch scritch_ of bitten fingernails on uneven surface.

"You're not making it any better, you know" Jack says with a huff as he puts down his book, apparently unable to focus due to Brock's insistent scratching.

As if it can get any better.

"Fuck off" is all Brock can manage, the itch beneath his skin getting more intense the more he claws as it, hot to the touch and starting to ooze tiny droplets of blood.

Despite his missing fingers, Jack's grip on his wrist is iron.

He moves in closer, rotating Brock's arm to take stock of the scratches and welt, the patchwork of angry pink and red and yellow against a healthy, if uneven, olive brown. There's dried scabs and wet, open sores, some of them shallow and seeping lymph, some deep like cigarette burns and refusing to heal, picked open again and again.

"Look at you. Looks like goddamn meth sores" Jack grumbles, and Brock doesn't even care to ask how Jack knows what meth sores look like, already pissed off by the whole situation.

"Makes me wish it was. Maybe if I got high and fucked up you'd be easier to deal with" Brock spits and he knows he's being awful, that Jack doesn't deserve any of his venom, but he can't help it, fed up with the soreness and the ugliness and the gentle care he doesn't deserve.

Jack doesn't answer. He gets up from the sofa and that's it, Brock thinks, another evening of silent treatment. There's been more and more of these, and he starts to consider that maybe all the bullshit they've been through really fucked them up beyond repair.

But Jack comes back with gauze and bandages and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Still not saying a word, he sits back down so that their thighs are touching. Jack's skin is warm and soft and alive, pale and covered in delicate fuzz. A tremor runs through his bad leg and a muscle twitches as he waits for Brock's move.

Eventually, Brock decides to stretch his hand out to Jack, who takes it in his awaiting palm. Silent and focused, he soaks a cotton round in peroxide and touches it to a gaping welt right in the middle of Brock's palm.

The chemical fizzles as soon as it touches skin, and Brock swears he can smell burning fuel and ashes.

* * *

"This is why we don't fuck anymore, isn't it?" Brock asks the freckled, scarred canvas of Jack's back. His voice, quiet as he tries to make it, is a rough rasp in the complete silence of the bedroom, jarring against the pale wisp of moonlight dancing through the dust in the air.

All he gets in ways of a reply is a muttered _hmm_ as Jack turns over to face him, his shoulder popping as he tries to make himself comfortable again.

"Said it's why we don't fuck anymore" Brock repeats, a bit louder, a bit firmer, gaze fixed on his hands, folded neatly over the bedding where he's sitting up against the headboard.

"Wha' is?" Jack's voice is slurred with sleep, warm and soft, and Brock almost feels bad for waking him up.

"My skin."

"I like your skin" Jack mumbles as he shuffles close enough to move the duvet to expose Brock's stomach, pressing a wet _smack_ of a kiss to where it folds as Brock sits, a layer of unsightly folds to add to the gory mess of scabs over burned flesh.

Brock reaches out to run his fingers through Jack's hair, and Jack leans into the touch, unaware of the flakes of skin Brock leaves behind in the tangled strands. "You're fucked in the head if you like any of this" Brock whispers, more to himself than to Jack.

Jack kisses him again, this time on the ribs, as he mutters against ruined flesh. "I like your skin" he says, and Brock still doesn't believe it. "I like how it feels against mine. I like how it looks. Like summer weather."

It's late-night nonsense, Jack's words, but it's oddly soothing so Brock lets it happen. He thinks back to when Jack first saw his burns, when he kissed the melted half of his face and whispered how much he loved him. To all the broken bones and bullet wounds, scrapes and cuts and bruises, sunburn and rug burn all etched into his skin. To much longer ago, when they first fucked, and Jack didn't say a word about Brock's dick, cut and scarred and discoloured, and just moaned all pretty for him.

The memory brings him back to his current concern. "Then why don't we fuck anymore?" he asks again. "You've been distant again. You don't touch me much."

"You've been angry. You're hurting and you're angry."

Brock's shoulder itches. He refuses to even touch it.

Instead he runs his fingers over Jack's lips, his heart skipping a beat as kisses are pressed to his cracked, dry knuckles. "C'mere, Jackie" he says as he pushes the duvet off to the side and pats his thigh, naked but for bandages and gauze over the worst of the damage.

Jack hauls himself up, uncoordinated and unselfconscious, and soon he's sitting up in Brock's lap, and they make out like teenagers, wet and messy and loud. If Brock can feel the way Jack's fingers catch on the uneven surface of his shoulders as he holds him impossibly close, he doesn't care.

He doesn't care that he can't get it up either, Jack moaning and whining with just two fingers up his ass and his cock rubbing against Brock's stomach, smearing precum over the scabs and scars, over discoloured flesh and plasters standing out pale against the warm olive of Brock's skin. Jack's getting close, Brock can tell by the taunt muscle in his thighs and by the way his breath hitches just a touch.

Brock crooks his finger just right and Jack trembles all over as he lunges forward, biting down on Brock's clavicle, pressing hungry, open mouthed kisses to his neck. It feels perfect. Brock is mortified.

"Jack, Jackie, love, careful. There's _bits_. You're gonna get my goddamn dead skin in your mouth" he warns, but Jack keeps biting at his shoulder as his fingers run welts down Brock's back, flakes of dead tissue no doubt accumulating underneath fingernails.

"Fuck off, 'm close, don't care, don't stop" he mutters as he lifts his head from Brock's shoulder for a second, and as much as Brock should try and dissuade Jack from biting at his goddamn scabs, gross as the whole affair is, he can't help but continue, pushing his fingers deeper, the sheer _want_ im Jack's voice keeping him going.

Later that night, when Jack is tired and sated, Brock will dream of fire raining from the sky, smoke in his lungs and embers in his hair. Of an army of gloved hands and tendrils of ice cold slipping through his veins like tentacles, melted flesh mending itself just to fall apart again. He will scratch and claw, leaving their white sheets speckled with rusty red, and Jack will wake him up and take him to the bathroom to wash the gore from his fingers.

But that comes later. For now, Jack's spine arches in a perfect curve as he comes, and he kisses Brock on his cracked, chapped lips, and if the kiss tastes like copper and iron and decay, he doesn't mind.

**Author's Note:**

> hi it's guts I'm back on my bullshit cept for the fact that I kinda lost the ability to write good and I hate this. send help.


End file.
